Treatment of pulp and paper mill wastewater—a review

Pulp and paper mills generate varieties of pollutants depending upon the type of the pulping process. This paper is the state of the art review of treatability of the pulp and paper mill wastewater and performance of available treatment processes. A comparison of all treatment processes is presented. Combinations of anaerobic and aerobic treatment processes are found to be efficient in the removal of soluble biodegradable organic pollutants. Color can be removed effectively by fungal treatment, coagulation, chemical oxidation, and ozonation. Chlorinated phenolic compounds and adsorable organic halides (AOX) can be efficiently reduced by adsorption, ozonation and membrane filtration techniques.